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"Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

thebureau.news

21–30 of 417 posts

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#21
>The whistleblower, whomThe Bureau is calling D.M., immigrated to Canada as an international student from India, making him a minority among mostly Chinese-Canadian co-workers at the Aurora branch.

I mean it's real Chinese income backed by fake paperwork. There's PRC capital controls, rich PRC national who buy RE abroad are going to do it via laundering services and has been for decade+. Banks are fine with this and have dedicated branches in diasphora area to handle because the money is good and reliable. Sometimes rich Chinese immigrants also do odd jobs to fill time, bored aunties with multi million dollar mansions in Richmond working shifts at River Rock Casino. It's a bizarre world.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#22
post #3

It's quite bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it.

> bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it

Foreign-owned homes are a problem for asset acquirers. Vacant homes are a problem for anyone who needs housing. The former seems to get a lot of visibilty when concerns around the latter get raised.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#24
HSBC Canada is in the process of being sold to RBC. As employees will no longer work for HSBC in March and possibly unemployed through the new found efficiencies by RBC, this creates an interesting situation for virtually no risk whistle-blowing.

I hadn't thought of this possibility when the exit was announced.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#25
> The whistleblower, whom The Bureau is calling D.M., immigrated to Canada as an international student from India, making him a minority among mostly Chinese-Canadian co-workers at the Aurora branch.

> “I am going to reveal potential mortgage fraud at HSBC Bank Canada and possibly some employees benefited from the fraud, financially pocketing thousands of dollars, which I call the proceeds of crime.”

> FINTRAC’s study doesn’t say that Canadian banks knowingly issued fake-income mortgages to Chinese diaspora buyers in Toronto. But in an interview, D.M. said banking staff are trained to guard against fraud, and the loan application packages he reviewed in Aurora beggared belief.

> The Bureau’s review of HSBC Canada emails and D.M.’s text messages, shows he came to believe numerous employees at the Aurora branch had direct knowledge of faked Chinese income mortgages, and a veteran manager with oversight of more than 10 Greater Toronto branches knew about broad and questionable mortgage lending for Chinese diaspora clients.

> Pointing to specific examples, D.M. claimed that another branch colleague had admitted processing numerous loan applications without meeting his clients, because a branch manager delivered her subordinates foreign income client applications so “they did not have to get sales themselves.”

> “She said yes, she knows specially in Mainland China there is a team who would even answer emails and phone calls verifying [Chinese income] but it’s a sophisticated and well organised scam,” D.M. 's email to HSBC Canada managers says. [...] “When I asked for such a serious issue if she raised a HSBC confidential [complaint] or not she evaded my question,” D.M. wrote. “Now we all love numbers, but I don't think the bank will like these kinds of numbers achieved through this way.”

Sounds like that branch is compromised

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why? Should we restrict other investments with similar logic? For example should non-residents not be allowed to purchase vacation properties and lease them? The impulse to enlist the government to regulate private property and investments is not productive and results in endless encroachment of individual liberties and rights to governments.

Something drastic has to be done about the cost of housing if we're to leave a functional society to the next generation.

Sure, but the high cost of housing has little to do with non-resident investors, and everything to do with lack of supply.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#27
post #6

> But more than a year later, D.M. was so dissatisfied with the bank’s response that I only recognize the HSBC name from scandals in the news: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HSBC#Controversies

Look at any wiki article on any major global bank, the chapter about 'controversies and legal issues' is always a thick list, HSBC ain't worse or better than others. There are no good guys there, that's not why the business was set up and corresponding folks were/are hired. If you want more controls, enforce more regulations, they do work if well defined.

HSBC seems worse than many others. When I moved to Canada my immigration lawyer explicitly advised to stay away from HSBC, this was in 2000 or so and they already had a pretty bad rep. The various scandals since then haven't improved that reputation. TD, CT and RB have their own problems but none of them have received even close to the total fines that HSBC has (to the best of my knowledge).

I agree there are no good guys here, but there are shades.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#28
post #2

IANAFinancialInvestigator, but skimming through it sounds like: 1. Fraudulent applicants come to the bank with crazy stories to ask for enormous loans/mortgages toward a Toronto house, allegedly to turn hyper-suspicious big piles of cash into a more reputable-looking asset. 2. HSBC goes along with that because they want to suckle on the sweet regular payments of suspicious cash, even though they ought to damn well kn…

A lot of it doesn’t even sound like money laundering, just fraud. You say you have a job paying you lots of money from China, verification is loose, you get the loans, and then try to make mortgage payments via Airbnb. The risk is mostly with the bank, and if it doesn’t blow up you make all the money.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#29
post #4
post #3

It's quite bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it.

Approximately anyone can buy a US-based REIT, even if they're ineligible to enter the country.

This is less of an issue than owning the home, since in an REIT, you aren't controlling tenant access.

Re: "Fake Chinese income" mortgages fuel Toronto real estate bubble: HSBC bank leaks

#30
post #3

It's quite bizarre any jurisdiction would allow someone to buy housing there when they can't legally live in it.

Why? Should we restrict other investments with similar logic? For example should non-residents not be allowed to purchase vacation properties and lease them? The impulse to enlist the government to regulate private property and investments is not productive and results in endless encroachment of individual liberties and rights to governments.

Yes. Restricting foreigners from owning domestic assets is the beginning. Next comes restricting / heavily taxing domestic owners that own more than one home. Sooner or later, housing gets closer to being what it's supposed to be (shelter and space for people who need it) rather than a financial vehicle.
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